Feature Friday: Serenading, December 1897

Christmas customs vary from place to place. One custom practiced in Rabun County up through at least my father’s generation was serenading. No singing here. Instead, groups of young people would go around to their neighbors on Christmas Eve and play practical jokes.

In the 16 December 1897 issue (Vol. 2, No. 20) of The Tallulah Falls Spray, the Wolf Creek correspondent cautions his fellow readers.

Christmas is coming. You may look[?] out—the serenaders will be around till you can’t rest; the Christmas bells will ring. Look careful; they will be here before you know it.

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Quotation excerpted from my upcoming volume Rabun County, Georgia, Newspapers, 1894 – 1899, expected to be released in 2012.